Waste Control Specialists, a Dallas company that operates a storage and disposal facility in Andrews County on the Texas-New Mexico line, made its request Tuesday to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Waste Control asked NRC officials to suspend their environmental and safety reviews of WCS’ application to store highly radioactive waste until a possible sale to the Utah company EnergySolutions.

The Department of Justice and EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists, two nuclear waste disposal companies, offered opposing views of how vigorously the companies compete in the first day of the government’s antitrust trial. The government sued in November 2016 to block the companies’ proposed $367 million deal. The Wilmington, Del., trial is the antitrust division’s first in the Trump administration. The DOJ argues that the deal is a horizontal merger combining the closest competitors in the nuclear waste disposal industry. EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists process low-level radioactive waste for nuclear power plants, hospitals and research facilities. Because the two companies face little competition other than each other, prices would go up after the merger, DOJ attorney Julie Elmer said in an opening statement. “The loss of head-to-head competition between EnergySolutions and Waste Control Specialists would be particularly harmful because there is no firm waiting in the wing to enter,” Elmer said.

Taylor addressed the Midland chapter, Society of Independent Professional Earth Scientists Wednesday in an effort to raise awareness of the impact the sites could have, not just on Permian Basin communities but on the region's oil and gas industry. "The Permian Basin is the No. 1 oil producing region in the U.S. It has changed the geopolitical environment around the world," he said. "This region is too important to U.S. security to allow this." SIPES member Stephen Robichaud agreed, pointing out that a serious leak from one of the casks could shut in 100 percent of the nation's oil and gas production as well as the Ogallala Aquifer, a main source of water for the middle of the country. Beyond the environmental impact, "we're talking about monetary damages in the many trillions of dollars. The impact could be enormous," Robichaud said.

I'm not posting this in agreement with this rhetoric, just noting what is being said about consolidated storage in Texas and the arguments being deployed against it.